(November 11, 2014) This Halloween, WCS Scientist Cori Lausen explains the impact of the devastating White Nose Syndrome on bats in North America. White Nose Syndrome has not yet spread to Western Canada and Dr. Lausen is studying those populations to try to mitigate the spread of the disease.  Dr. Lausen explains the urgency, as we race against the spread of the disease into Western Canada: "We know surprisingly little about what our bats do in the winter. Part of the urgency right now is to figure ou...

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(July 25, 2014) Dr. Cori Lausen and a bat team have headed to the the Flathead River valley in southeastern British Columbia for a four-day BioBlitz in attempt to find out more information about bats.“It’s really the only place left in southern British Columbia that has not been inventoried for bats,” said Lausen, a research biologist and bat specialist with the Wildlife Conservation Society Canada.Related stories:Bat research blitz planned for southeast B.C. river valley, by Collette Der...

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(July 16, 2014) (Originally posted on ClimateWire on Wednesday, July 2, 2014)Henry Gass, E&E reporterMelting snow is an annual spring annoyance across Canada, but last year on an Indian reservation in northern Ontario, it triggered a state of emergency.Rapidly melting snow in the Attawapiskat First Nation shut down schools, backed up sewage in people's homes and triggered the evacuation of a hospital. Less than three months later, a mine near the impoverished reservation unearthed the biggest diamond ever p...

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(June 23, 2014) A new report, "Conservation Legacy on a Flagship Forest: Wildlife and Wild Lands on the Flathead National Forest, Montana" by WCS Senior Scientist Dr. John Weaver, calls for completing the legacy of Wilderness lands on the Flathead National Forest in Montana. The report identifies important, secure habitats and landscape connections for five species—bull trout, westslope cutthroat trout, grizzly bears, wolverines, and mountain goats. These iconic species are vulnerable to loss of secure ha...

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(June 19, 2014) WCS Canada and Ecojustice just released a new report on Regional Strategic Environmental Assessment (R-SEA) -a tool that would help the newly elected Ontario government plan for big development and conservation decisions in Ontario's Far North. The region harbours globally-significant ecosystems (including the largest intact boreal forest left on the planet) and numerous First Nations communities, as well as potentially enormous mineral deposits. The government's current development project appr...

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(June 04, 2014) WCS Canada has a new round of W. Garfield Weston Fellows! These are graduate students that are advancing conservation in Canada through pursuing research questions that provide important information for conserving our wildlife and wild places. This fellowship program is generously supported by the W. Garfield Weston Foundation.  Check out our new fellows and their projects here.

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(May 05, 2014) As part of the 15th North American Caribou Workshop in Whitehorse, YK, running from the 12th to the 16th of May 2014, we are hosting a free public Celebration of Caribou event, including films and storytelling. Come out if you are in the neighbourhood! See the Press Release for the Event Here

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(March 31, 2014) Our Dr. Don Reid has co-authored a paper that was published online last week in Nature Climate Change. The study was an international collaboration to investigate the effects of climate change on Arctic food webs, and found that predation on herbivores is increasing - it is going up by 4.5% for each degree Celsius increase in temperature! This paper shows that predators are the main drivers of the Arctic food chain, just like in the African savannah and North American Great Plains. However, larg...

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(March 17, 2014) We have launched a blog, called Muddy Boots, for our scientists to share their stories from the field and reflections on conservation issues in Canada. Our scientists spend a lot of time in the field and have many fun tales to tell about close encounters with wildlife, confronting the elements, and the joys and frustrations of being in some of Canada's most remote pieces of wilderness. Being in the field also gives them lots of time to think about conservation issues and how we might go abo...

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(March 13, 2014) In November 2013, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), an independent scientific committee, had a meeting to evaluate the conservation status of several species, including Plains bison and Wood bison. This committee meets twice annually to assess the conservations status of species in Canada and recommends any changes to the Minister of the Environment. Plains bison were assessed in 2004 as Threatened and their status did not change through the most recent meet...

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